By Lot or Not?

THE DRAFT

From Congress to the campus and back again, debate over the inequities and eccentricities of the U.S. Selective Service System continued at high volume last week. Republican Richard Nixon blasted it as a potential "national scandal." New York's G.O.P. Senator Jacob Javits called it a "crazy quilt" of regulations; he proposed instead a McNamaraesque plan for universal national service (not necessarily military) to include everyone under 35. And Joseph P. McMurray, president of New York's 20,000-student Queens College, snapped, "Let us stop pretending that enforced service is democratic," and demanded that U.S. conscription be done away with -- period.

As the criticism increased, so did talk about the advantages of a nation wide lottery. In the eyes of its advocates, some form of number drawing from an electronic hat would be more equitable -- particularly since less than one-third of the pool of 1A eligibles (about 995,000 men) are currently being called.

Always Exceptions. Said Wisconsin's Democratic Congressman Henry Reuss in a House floor speech: "Men should be drawn essentially at random -- which is simply a way of saying everyone will have an equal chance of being picked.

I stress that this should be a national drawing -- a fundamental change from the very limited sort of lottery used by local boards at the beginning of World War II." As explained by Reuss, a lottery would work thus: "Young men should be given their physical and mental examinations immediately upon registering at age 18. If found eligible for service, they would then be given a one-year exposure to call for service between the ages of 18 1/2 and 19 1/2. If not called that year, their liability would end -- except, of course, in that kind of national emergency which requires practically everyone to serve."

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy also favors such an all-or-nothing lottery, and sees it as a selection system under which "rich and poor, college and noncollege, married and single, would take their chances on an even footing." Perfectly even? Well, not quite. Every lottery advocate admits there still would be deferments, exemptions and special dispensations -- almost certainly still to be administered by the much maligned local boards.

Reuss wants to abolish the controversial 25 (college student) deferment as well as exemptions for fathers and some occupations, but he admits there should still be exemptions for conscientious objectors, the clergy, students in the middle of the school year, cases of "extreme personal hardship" and some "extremely vital" civilian jobs.

Fishbowl Equity. Teddy Kennedy's plan has a slightly different wrinkle: he would let college-bound youngsters get their degree and then go into the lottery with everyone else who turns eligible that year. A Pentagon-based presidential study group, which is expected to release its two-year survey of U.S. draft practices some time this summer, has favorably considered a lottery plan under which even collegians who get married in school and have lots of children would not be bypassed once their numbers came up--except for extreme hardship cases.

The idea of a conscription lottery is far from new. The U.S. used it in July 1917 to pluck 687,000 draftees from 10 million registrants between the ages of 21 and 31. Conceived by Army Provost Marshal General Enoch H. Crowder, the drawing was made in Washington from 10,500 numbered slips of paper (10,500 was the largest number of registrants signed up with any single local board). The first number pulled from the fishbowl was 258, and every registrant with that number was called. In all, 1,374,000 men took physical exams; 70% passed and then got seven days to file exemptions claims. By December, 516,000 draftees had been selected and were already in training, with relatively few complaints.

Mechanically fair as a random drawing may seem to be, there will continue to be exemptible exceptions--which would almost certainly lead again to cries of inequity. Beyond that, the President must have some month-to-month flexibility in the number of men he can call up for service. And the premise that in a situation like today's, a majority of men would be forever free from military service on the basis of mere luck would seem to put unnecessary--and possibly unwise--restrictions on presidential policymaking. As salty old Lieut. General Lewis Hershey, U.S. selective-service chief, said last week for the umteenth time: "I'm un willing to admit that blind chance is better than other methods--bad as they may sometimes be--for solving our manpower problems."

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